


Through the Fog

by daringlybelieving



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daringlybelieving/pseuds/daringlybelieving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The persistent gnawing had plagued him since the highway. He couldn't fail her too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Daryl shifted in an effort to become more comfortable on the patch of hard ground that he had selected to be his bed that night. He could see Rick’s silhouette highlighted by the moon as he stood watch on the wall that surrounded them. Around him, the soft sounds of the rest of the group sleeping soundly provided him an unexpected moment of comfort for him. While he wouldn’t truly admit it to himself, and certainly not to the others, they had become something of a family to him, regardless of how messed-up and dysfunctional it was. And yet, something was missing. Or _someone_.

The persistent gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach had been making him uneasy since the highway. It was a sickeningly familiar feeling, the very same one that had plagued him during his search for Sophia, the one that returned when he turned his thoughts towards his missing brother. He couldn’t save that girl, didn’t even know if _he_ was still alive. But he couldn’t fail her too. They needed her too much.

He sat up quickly and rolled the kinks out of his stiff shoulders and neck. Beside him, Carol muttered something in her sleep and rolled over, brushing her arm against his leg. Daryl forced himself not to shy away from the unwelcome contact too fast, he didn’t want to others to wake up just yet. He stood up as quietly as possible and slung his crossbow over his shoulder. Carefully dodging the slumbering bodies spread around the fire-pit, he made his way over to where Rick was vigilantly keeping watch for walkers.

He scrambled up the wall and came to rest beside the ‘retired’ cop, sweeping his eyes through the trees at the side of the road, staying sharp for any sign of stumbling movement. They remained silent that way for a few minutes, long enough for Daryl to become comfortable with the silence.

“Couldn’t sleep?” the question came in a raspy whisper. Daryl made a small sarcastic noise and turned on the wall to survey the other side of the road.

“Ain’t slept since this shitstorm started.” He replied, lightly running his finger down the fletching of one of his arrows.

Rick hummed in agreement, “I hear that,” he glanced in the general direction of Lori and Carl for a quick moment before turning back to his surveillance, “Nobody’s getting’ much sleep these days.”

Daryl tensed as a dark shape darted out of the trees and scurried across the road, disappearing into a thicket of bushes on the other side. He kept his eyes trained on the area it had emerged from, only relaxing again when nothing unwelcome followed.

“Lost too many people today.” Daryl mumbled, more to himself than to his companion. He sensed Rick step closer and tensed involuntarily, his hunter’s senses heightening at the presence behind his back.

“Andrea’s smart, she can take care of herself,” Rick replied to the observation. Daryl caught the underlying ‘if she’s alive’ and shuffled restlessly. He grunted in acknowledgement tracked the movement of the dark shadow from before as it emerged from it’s hiding place in the bushes. Raising his crossbow, he loaded an arrow and quickly fired at the creature, barely waiting to see if it fell before he was back on the ground and moving swiftly and silently towards his kill.

He lifted the possum by its tail and retrieved his arrow, feeling a fleeting moment of pride at the clean kill. He saw Rick nodding appreciatively as he headed back to the camp, dropping the dead animal out of the way to be cleaned in the morning. 

He returned to his place on the wall just as Rick stifled a yawn. “I’ll take over,” he murmured, his tone leaving no room argument. Rick hesitated only for a moment before nodding his acquiescence and jumping off the wall, landing with a soft thud on the loose soil. Daryl watched him lean over Carl and pull the flimsy cover they had found in the back of one of the cars further up his chest. He turned his attention back to his duty before the other man laid beside his wife and pulled her closer; he did not need to be witnessing that shit, he told himself.

Before long, Rick’s deep snoring joined the symphony of sounds the rest of the group were making in their sleep. Daryl grimaced and reloaded his crossbow; if the dead weren’t already up and walking, the noise Rick alone was making would be enough to make them crawl out of their graves.

He walked slowly along the top of the wall, expertly dodging where it was crumbling in places, and kept his eyes moving in a constant sweeping arc around the perimeter. A quick glance at the horizon told him it couldn’t be far off dawn. Perfect, he didn’t want to be walking around in the dark.

He stood silently as he waited for the sun to rise, not once letting himself lag in his self-assigned duty. He knew they wouldn’t be able to stay there long, not with the number of walkers around, walking aimlessly in the direction they had last head noises. They may be slow, but it was only a matte of time before they caught up to them again. What happened at the farm proved that. Staying was not an option.

The first sounds of movement within the camp came just as the sun began to peek through the trees. He didn’t move until he heard someone trying to climb the wall; quiet curses and feet scrabbling against the rock drawing his attention. Glenn gave Daryl a meek smile when he turned and helped to haul the young Korean up the rest of the way.

“’Bout time you woke your ass up.” He said brusquely, helping Glenn to get his footing on the wall before moving away.

“Sorry? Was it my turn to be on watch?” Glenn asked around a yawn, rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes.

Daryl plucked one of his arrows off his crossbow and examined the fletching, holding it away from it and peering down the line of the feather. “Nah, just thought it would be a good idea fer someone to be awake ‘fore I left.” He replied. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the sharp turn of Glenn’s head.

“You’re _leaving_?” He asked incredulously, “Why?” he glanced apprehensively towards the rest of the people sleeping below them and chewed on his lower lip. Daryl returned the arrow to its holder and met Glenn’s questioning gaze.

“Imma goin’ to find her.” he responded, unsurprised when Glenn’s dark eyes widened.

“Who, Andrea?” Daryl remained silent and flicked his eyes away from Glenn. “ _Are you crazy_?” he hissed, stepping closer to the southerner, “You heard what Rick said, if she’s not dead she’s somewhere else, you’ll never find her!”

Daryl felt his irritation rising as he listened to the young man sprouting reasons why he _shouldn’t_ go, and yet the only thought that was in his head was that she was out there, by herself. He couldn’t fail her too. Not the way he failed Sophia.

“I ain’t leavin’ her behind,” he said gruffly, putting an end to Glenn’s tirade. Glenn sighed in resignation and lowered his head, adjusting the ever-present baseball cap.

“Rick won’t let us stay here, how will you find us?” Glenn whispered, his gaze shooting over to the man who was curled on his side next to the long extinguished fire-pit.

“Y’let me worry ‘bout that, China.” Daryl replied, slinging the strap of his crossbow over his shoulder and checking all of the arrows were secure. Glenn swallowed nervously as the other man jumped to the ground and collected his bags, quickly checking he had everything he would need while he was gone.

Daryl attached the bags to the back of his motorcycle and wheeled it slowly to the edge of the camp, only stopping to nod once at Glenn watching from the wall before continuing down the road, back towards the highway.

He walked quickly, constantly keeping his eyes open for any walkers that might have stumbled this far through the woods, the weight of his crossbow giving him a small amount of comfort hanging by his side.

He waited until he was a good distance away from the camp before he climbed onto the motorcycle and brought it to life, the familiar loud growl of the engine adding another layer of reassurance and comfort as he sped down the deserted roads, dodging the occasional stray walker that appeared in his path. He could only hope that Rick would have enough sense to move the rest of the group early, before they got trapped and that noise of his motorcycle would draw any other walkers in the area away from the camp.

By the time he reached the highway, Daryl was cursing himself for not stopping long enough to eat. He snorted at the thought, they didn’t _have_ any food anyway, just the possum from during the night.

He slowly weaved the motorcycle through the graveyard of deserted cars, aiming for where they had left supplies for Sophia. If there was anything that hadn’t already been taken by other survivors, he might as well make use of it.

Everything was exactly the way that they had left it after leaving the farm, and Daryl felt his heart sink. Andrea hadn’t been there. She hadn’t gotten away from the farm. At least not that way.

The more he thought about it, the more the idea strengthened his resolve to find her. Without giving much thought to it, he ate the rest of the supplies that had been left on the car for Sophia, keeping half his attention on his surroundings while he inspected the cars that had been abandoned.

He spotted the blue truck that T-Dogg and Andrea had been using during the walker attack, the one T-Dogg had stupidly left behind after they met up again. He smiled grimly to himself and pulled the driver’s side door open, minutely happy to see that the keys were still in the ignition. He started the engine and grinned when the fuel gauge indicted there was nearly half a tank left. More than enough for what he’d need.

He loaded his motorcycle onto the bed of the truck and dropped his crossbow onto the passenger seat. With one last look around, he set the truck in gear and drove back to the place they had once considered a haven.


	2. Chapter 2

Daryl made the truck come to a stop halfway down the dirt road that led to the Greene farm. Who knew how many walkers would still be in the area, but either way, he didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to himself. He turned off the ignition, but left the keys in, no point in wasting time with little things like getting the key into the hole if he needed to get outta there quick. He leaned over to the passenger side and collected his crossbow, ensuring that it was properly loaded before he climbed out of the truck.

It was fully light now, and a quick glance at the sky told him that it was around mid-morning. Even as far away as he was from the house, he could already smell the acrid smoke from the barn fire, could imagine it billowing from the burning ruins two nights before. Holding his crossbow against his shoulder, ready to fire if any walkers should make their undesirable presence known, he began to make his way swiftly down the dirt track to the farm.

In the distance he could see the farmhouse itself, standing proud and undamaged at the end of the world. If he hadn’t known that it was the apocalypse, he would never have guessed that anything was wrong. The closer he got the more he saw; a group of walkers feeding on someone or something that Daryl could only hope wasn’t Andrea, while others ambled aimlessly around the property. Across the fields he could see the still glowing pile of rumble of what used to be the barn, the skeleton of Dale’s Winnebago sat beside it.

He circled wide and fast, keeping low as he ran across the field towards the farmhouse, silently taking out walkers and reloading his crossbow before they noticed he was there. Two more trudged into his path and snarled at him, arms reaching and jaws snapping at the prospect of fresh meat. He fired his crossbow at the nearest one, a skinny thing that looked like it could have been a woman before half of it’s face had been chewed off by walkers, it’s left foot turned at a sickening angle, old blood and grime covering it’s shirt. It crumbled to the ground with a soft thud when Daryl’s arrow struck home. The second geek gurgled and moaned, it’s head turned at an angle that could only have been caused by a broken neck. Daryl sneered and drew his hunting knife out of the sheath at his waist, driving it easily through the walker’s skull.

“Stupid sumbitch,” he murmured as he pulled his knife free, not entirely sure whether he meant the dead walker at his feet or himself. He quickly concluded that it could easily be the latter when he heard the telltale sound of shuffling from behind him. He adjusted his grip on the handle of his knife and swung round on one heel, allowing the momentum of the movement to carry his other leg around in a wide arch, sweeping the legs out from beneath the oncoming walker. He watched fascinated as it rolled to it’s side, arms reaching for him as if on autopilot, but that morbid interest ended the moment he rammed the sharp blade of his knife easily through the top of it’s head. 

He quickly looked around himself for any more walkers that may have noticed he was there, breathing a soft sigh of relief to find them too interested in what, no not _what_ , _who_ they were consuming just a little way away from the farmhouse. He grimaced as he recognised a battered and bloody shoe sitting discarded to the side of the horde of walkers. He knew, deep down and even before Beth had told them she was gone, that Patricia wouldn’t survive long outside of the Greene’s little refuge. He had just imagined that she’d get further than five metres away from the porch.

He shook his head and skirted quietly past the group. One geek raised it’s head and made a noise that was somewhere in between a growl and a gurgle. Daryl ignored it and made his way quickly up the porch steps, trying to make as little noise as possible with his heavy boots on the wooden decking. He could feel his pulse rushing in his ears so loudly he briefly wondered whether it would be loud enough to draw every walker in the vicinity directly to him.

He paused just outside the open door and glanced behind him. No walkers had followed him, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t eventually. He took a deep cleansing breath and shifted his grip on his crossbow until he could hold it with both hands without having to return his knife to the sheath at his waist. He peeked around the doorframe, straining his ears for the telltale sounds of the dead inside the house. When he heard and saw nothing obvious, he crept through the doorway, swinging his crossbow in a wide arc around the room, his eyes moving slowly so as not to miss a single detail.

The room was empty.

Releasing a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding, Daryl turned on his heel and closed the door reluctantly behind him; while it wouldn’t keep any walkers outside, it would at least slow them down, with the added downside of slowing him down too if he need a quick way out. He knew instinctively that Andrea wasn’t there. If she had managed to make it back to the farmhouse, the door would have been closed, locked and firmly barricaded rather than left wide open. Yet he felt the strongest desire to give the house a once-over, if only to reassure the irrational part of his mind that told him she _could_ be there, and not to leave her behind again.

He walked slowly through the ground floor of the farmhouse, peering around corners, stopping every few feet or so to listen for feet dragging across the wooden floors. He stops when he reaches the kitchen, momentarily thrown by how normal it looks, like nothing had transpired. He almost expected to find Lori and Maggie stood in front of the counters, preparing lunch for the group. Instead all he finds is a pile of dirty plates in the sink waiting to be washed.

He clenched his teeth, turned away from the room and headed instead towards the stairs that would lead him to the bedrooms upstairs. Daryl kept his crossbow trained at the landing above him as he ascended, flinching and pausing whenever he stood on a creaky step. He was reminded of when he was a teenager, trying to sneak back into the house after a night in the woods. Back then he hadn’t needed to worry about making too much noise, his father was normally still passed out drunk on the couch and Merle was more than likely locked in his bedroom getting high. The sneaking part had only become a habit after getting caught one time, and earning a particularly bad beating for his troubles; not for sneaking out in the middle of the night, but for waking his father up on the way back in.

He stopped dead in his tracks, one foot held in midair when he heard a floorboard creak, one that wasn’t from the stairs, and hadn’t come from below. He held his breath as he allowed his hunter’s senses take over, ears straining for the slightest sounds of movement from the rooms above. His index finger brushed lightly over the trigger of his beloved crossbow as he shifted it lightly in his hands, lining up the sights to the landing above him. It was darker up there, but he saw no movement and heard nothing; no shuffling, no creaking floorboards, no guttural groans of the undead, just silence.

That silence was making him nervous.

He snorted in derision to himself. Nervous? Dixon’s never got nervous. Hell, he’d spend entire days out in the woods by himself, where sometimes it would be so silent he could hear a bug running across a leaf. He knew if Merle were there with him he’d whack him around the head and tell him to stop being a pussy, but the unnatural quiet of the house was making him agitated; after all, quiet wasn’t always a good thing.

He rolled his shoulders to loosen them of the tight knots that had formed there while he listened and ran up the last few steps. The first door he came to was closed so he walked by it, better to check the others first. The second door was still open, and if memory served, he would be in the bathroom. He ducked his head around the corner and quickly scanned the small space, finding nothing but shower curtain half pulled down to the floor.

He backed out quickly and cross the hall to the room at the far end. He’d never been in that one before. He was unsurprised to see a large bed pressed up against one wall from his position just outside the room. He took one small step inside the room and pivoted to the left, his nose alerting him to its presence before he saw it. The walker barely had time to notice him before the arrow pierced through what was left of its right eye socket.

Daryl smiled grimly as it fell to the floor with a heavy thud. He gave it a quick kick in the ribs, and satisfied when it didn’t move he flipped it over easily with his foot and retrieved his arrow, fishing the rag out of his back pocket to wipe it down before reloading it. On the way back out the stairs he barely stopped long enough to open the door of the first room and poke his head inside, he already knew Andrea wasn’t here, and it was highly doubtful geeks had enough sense to close the door behind them.

He worked his way back through the house to where he had come in, glancing at out the windows every now and then to check on the remnants of the herd’s whereabouts. He stood behind the closed door and looked out. The small group he had passed on the way in were still too interested in what _had_ been Patricia to notice anything other than what was directly in front of them. It appeared that he had gotten lucky, only one or two more geeks had moved into the area.

His tracker’s eyes swept over the area in his direct field of vision. On his way down the dirt path to the farmhouse he had seen no evidence of another person, living person that is. He had seen plenty of the telltale signs of walkers dragging their feet, all of them following the tracks his motorcycle had left in the dirt when he and Carol had rode away.

He wished that he could be outside tracking properly instead of through a smeared pane of glass when his eyes found the trail of a small group leading away from the house. The further away from the house the tracks got, the more he could see if intersected with those left behind by walkers. He frowned deeply and pressed his face as close to the glass as he could get without going outside. The walker tracks went into the woods.

He shook his head. He couldn’t be seeing that right, he told himself. Why would walkers go into the woods instead of chasing after the women? His frown slowly turned into a smirk. They had been chasing after the women, one of them at least.


	3. Chapter 3

Daryl considered his options as he stood with his face resting lightly against the glass of the door window. He could see that the tracks going into the woods were heading in the opposite direction to the highway. He knew he should make his way back up to the truck, go back to camp and tell them that at the very least Andrea had gotten away from the farm. He shook his head and began pacing a small circle around the room.

The trail would be cold by now, not that that was much of a problem for him; he’d tracked deer that hadn’t been in the area for days before the apocalypse and it wouldn’t be hard for him to follow the trail of disturbed foliage and broken branches and sticks that the clumsy stumbling horde of walkers would surely have left behind.

He paused his pacing by the door and looked out in the direction of the truck and his motorcycle. He would have to leave them there if he went in to the woods, leaving behind the meagre supplies he had gathered from the highway; there was no way he could risk going back for them, he had his crossbow, it wouldn’t be hard for him to find squirrels and rabbits if he needed to hunt.

He ran a hand through his already messy hair and gritted his teeth, his decision made; Rick hadn’t wanted to come back to even _check_ if Blondie was alive, he wasn’t about to go back to the rest of the group without her or without proof that she couldn’t be saved.

“N’body gets left behind my ass,” he muttered to himself as he swung the door open and stepped swiftly out onto the porch. The two geeks that had appeared while he was searching the house lurched to a halt and glanced crookedly in his direction, broken teeth bared and dripping. They slowly began to move in his direction, arms outstretched and fingers clawing, guttural moans escaping their throats with every other awkward step they made.

Daryl sneered at them and walked around the side of the house towards the woods, the sounds of the walkers clattering up the wooden steps behind him. He hooked his arm and head through the crossbows strap and secured it to his back as he came to the porch railing. He planted his hands firmly and easily leapt over the wooden railing, barely feeling the sharp splinters that were left behind when he let go, landing with a soft thud on the dirt below.

He absently wiped his hands off on his dirty jeans and crouched low to run the short distance from the farmhouse to the tree line. He slipped in between the bushes and slid down the small slope as quietly as he could, it wouldn’t be long before those geeks found a way around the porch railing and followed. He walked a small way further into the trees before veering off to the right in the direction of the tracks. It wasn’t hard to find them, the lack of rain and the constant presence of the baking Georgia sun preserving them well enough for him to spot even from a distance.

He quickly distinguished Andrea’s footsteps from those of the walkers, they were evenly spaced and clear while those of the dead were sporadic and messy, a testament to their uncoordinated movements.

He began following the trail quickly; automatically employing all the tracking skills he had learnt over the years, picking up small details that would normally be overlooked by anyone who wasn’t looking close enough; snapped twigs, disturbed leaves, drops and swipes of old blood left behind by the dead as they tirelessly pursued their quarry.

It didn’t take him long to find the first body crumpled facedown in the dirt. He strode cautiously up to it and flipped it over with the toe of his boot. Though he was unsurprised to find a bullet hole almost dead centre in the geek’s forehead, he was surprised at the sudden rush of pride that he felt. 

He pushed the feeling away and focused on the task at hand. Crouching down beside the dead walker at his feet, he carefully inspected its face and hands and was slightly comforted when he found no traces of fresh blood on the decomposing flesh. He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans as he straightened.

He left the walker behind in the dirt as he continued following the tracks through the woods, occasionally stopping to search more carefully for the footsteps he wanted when he came to sections that had been destroyed and covered by the walkers’ own trails. It didn’t take him long to pick them up again, his confidence in his direction, and Andrea’s continued survival, increasing with every dead walker he came across.

He followed the same procedure with each one as he did with the first, checking each for fresh blood on their hands and around their mouths, the sensation of pride strengthening with every direct kill shot until it became so strong he was unable to suppress it. It was an odd thing for Daryl Dixon to experience; pride in another person. When he was young, his parents had never been proud of any of his accomplishments, or at least, never expressed it to him directly, the case normally being that they were too high or too engrossed in the bottle to notice his achievements. He became uncomfortable when people praised him nowadays, he was so used to being ignored, that having someone notice the little things shocked him.

_Daryl threw the string of dead squirrels across one of the logs the group used to sit on and grabbed the large bowl he used when he was dressing his catch. He perched himself on the log beside his kills and pulled out his sharp hunting knife. He lazily wiped it clean on a rag before he took hold of the first squirrel._

_He had almost finished skinning the animal when he heard someone walk up behind him. He tensed and dropped the squirrel onto his lap, not caring about the stains the bloody carcass would leave behind. He whipped his head around to see Andrea raise her hands and take a small step away._

_“I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m sorry,” she said cautiously, her green eyes flashing uncertainly between his face and the knife in his still raised hand. He lowered it slowly and turned his attention back to the squirrel. He saw her sit beside him on the log and chose to ignore her, carefully peeling away the rest of the squirrels hide._

_He draped the skin over the log, fur down, and pulled out a pocketknife. He dropped the squirrel into the bowl and skilfully cut from the lower abdomen to the chest cavity. When he was done he dropped the knife and removed the animals innards with his hands, leaving them in the bowl when he finished._

_He tried not to smile when he heard Andrea take a deep breath beside him. He glanced at her quickly enough to see that her already pale face had lost what little colour it normally held. “Y’okay?” he asked absently as he put the dressed squirrel on top of its fur and reached for another._

_“Yeah…fine.” She replied softly._

_“Well, wha’d’ya want?” he said gruffly, slicing quickly through the second squirrels hide. He dropped his knife and pulled off the skin with less care than he had the first and silently berated himself for his sloppy work._

_He saw her twisting her hands together in her lap out of the corner of his eyes before he heard her answer, “I know that people around here don’t really thank you for everything that you do around here so I wanted to, thank you I mean.” She paused when he turned to look at her, his eyebrows arched in both confusion and a mild interest. “It’s just that you do so much for us, and you don’t get recognition for it, so I thought that I’d, you know,” she blushed furiously and abruptly pulled herself to her feet, “I’m bothering you, I’m sorry.” She mumbled quickly before jumping over the log and scampering off towards Dale’s RV, most likely in search of her sister._

_Daryl blinked rapidly several times; entirely unsure of what the hell had just happened. He shook his head and returned to his work, finishing the job quickly and efficiently._

Daryl glanced at the sky and frowned. By the look of it it was late afternoon, and while it wouldn’t be sunset for a good few more hours, darkness would fall much sooner in the thick copse of trees. Attempting to follow Andrea’s tracks would be impossible in the dark, not to mention dangerous. 

He walked through the woods for a little while longer, following the trails left behind, all the while keeping an eye out for a suitable place to set up camp for the night. He came across a fallen-down tree and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was hollow and plenty large enough for him to crawl into. While probably not the most comfortable place to sleep, it would definitely be safer than sleeping out in the open by himself.

He laid himself down and slid inside the hollow trunk feet first, shuffling in until he was sufficiently hidden from the cold forest outside, then closed his eyes, and waited for sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Andrea bent over at the waist and braced her hands against her thighs, trying desperately to catch her breath. She winced and rubbed at the painful stitch in her side. Beside her, Michonne was standing with her back turned, facing the direction they had come from, the chains in her hand hanging loosely.

Andrea glanced warily at the two armless walkers that were bound to the end of the chains. While Michonne had assured her that they were no longer dangerous, their missing arms and lower jaws made sure of that, it had done nothing to eradicate her unease in their presence.

“We need to keep moving.” Michonne spoke quietly but firmly, her head turning in a slow arc as she scanned the woods.

Andrea sighed moved to lean against a tree, “I know, I know, I just need a minute.” She knew in the back of her mind that it was only a couple of days since the they were forced to leave the farm, but to her, it felt like she’d been running for weeks.

She was beyond tired, so much so that she was sure she wouldn’t be able to go much further, and she ached everywhere; she didn’t need to take of her boots to see that they had rubbed her feet raw, and from the tightness of her left boot, she was certain that her ankle was swollen. 

“The longer we stay here, the closer they get,” Michonne turned to look at her, her eyes hard and cold, “Walking through these woods, we might not see them, but they notice us. They follow. It’s only a matter of time before they catch up.”

Andrea cast her eyes around in a wide arch, warily taking in as much of the suffocating woods as she could. If what Michonne had said was correct, they needed to get away from the trees as soon as possible, there were too many places where walkers could be hidden from their sight.

“Are you sure?” she asked, pulling away from the tree and forcing her tired limbs to keep her standing.

Michonne hummed a positive and moved towards her, a sharp tug on the chains in her hands making her two ‘pets’ follow, “They’re out there. They might not be close enough to hear them yet, but they _are_ there.”

“…Right” Andrea replied distractedly.

“Let’s go.” Michonne set off further into the trees, the two armless walkers loping aimlessly along behind her. Andrea sighed in resignation, but knew that if the other woman had survived this long alone, she had to be doing something right, and so trudged along after her.

They walked in near silence for what Andrea thought was nearly two hours, the crunching of dry leaves, the occasional snapping twig and the low moans of their undead companions the only sounds to be heard. Andrea was quickly becoming accustomed to Michonne’s quiet nature; in the short time they had been together, there had been very limited vocal interactions between the two of them. As Andrea studied the woman walking silently as a shadow just ahead of her, she found that she was reminded of Daryl.

She had been into the woods enough times with Daryl during their stay at the farm to know that he could move without making a sound, he saw things that no-one else could see or would easily overlook. He was a strong, imposing force when he wanted to be, but was capable of melting into the shadows and staying in the background. The more time she spent with Michonne, the more she saw that the woman possessed a lot of those same qualities.

“So, where are the rest of your group?” Andrea asked, hopping lithely over a large rotten branch in her path.

Michonne snorted back a laugh and threw a look over her shoulder, “No group, just me.”

The shock of what she had just heard made Andrea’s steps falter, “You’ve survived all this time on your own?” she asked incredulously.

Michonne stopped and looked at her, an eyebrow raised, “That a problem?”

Andrea felt her eyes widen at the challenging look Michonne was giving her, “What? No, no, of course not, I was just surprised,” she stuttered, “I don’t know how long most of the people in my group would last on their own,” she glanced down at her feet, “we’re too dependent on each other.” She mumbled.

Michonne nodded slowly before setting off again, “Does no good to be completely dependent on another person, especially now,” Andrea jogged to catch up to her new friend and fell into the easy pace she was setting, “Times like these you need to know how to take care of yourself.”

Andrea hummed in agreement and snuck a glance at the other woman, “So how is it you managed to do this all on your own?” she asked, genuinely curious.

Michonne shrugged her muscular shoulders, “I was smart, stayed on the move, never stopped in one place too long,” she hiked her thumb over her shoulder at the two walkers trailing along behind them, “saw the dead don’t attack each other so I brought these two along with me. They ‘shield’ me, for lack of a better word, from the others.”

Andrea nodded her head in understanding. She had suspected that was the case; helping Glenn and Rick cover them selves in the decomposing corpse that was Wayne Dunlap, and the effect the smell had on other walkers, was not something she would forget in a hurry.

“Did you know them?” Andrea asked softly, and as Michonne glanced back at the two creatures following the pair of them aimlessly, a sad smile curling her lips, she knew the answer to her question. “I’m sorry.” 

“My boyfriend Mike and his best friend Terry. We didn’t know what was going on, just that the dead were coming back.” She kept her eyes straight ahead and her voice never wavered as she spoke, and Andrea found herself captivated by the woman’s story. “One tried to get into our house. Mike killed it, but not before he got bit. We didn’t know bites killed you, so I just bandaged him up and left him with Terry while I went on a supply run. By the time I got back they’d both changed.”

Andrea bowed her head slightly in understanding of the other woman’s grief, “I’m sorry.” She replied, genuinely feeling for her new friend. She couldn’t even imagine how she copes on a daily basis with seeing the decomposing, yet animated, corpse of her boyfriend.

Michonne shrugged lightly, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, not your fault.” Andrea smiled briefly in response, the smile lasting barely a second before it turned to a grimace at the pain emanating from her sore ankle and blistered feet. She managed to bite back the hiss of pain that threatened to escape her, but not before Michonne noticed.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes narrowing in what Andrea assumed was concern. Andrea nodded half-heartedly, wincing when she landed a step on a particularly sore spot on her left foot. “Bullshit.” She walked over to a tree and looped the ends of the chains around one of the branches. “Let me take a look.”

“Oh, no, really I’m-” her protests were cut off by a sharp look from Michonne that clearly said _sit down or I will make you sit down_. She huffed in mild annoyance, secretly glad for the opportunity of a rest, and sank down against the base of the same tree Michonne had tied Terry and Mike to.

The African-American woman went and knelt at her feet and helped to undo one of the worn leather boots while Andrea did the other. Brushing her long dreadlocks out of the way, Michonne gently peeled the boot she had been unlacing off Andrea’s foot, and then proceeded to do the same with her sock, taking her time and apologising when the blonde flinched and hissed in pain.

“Damn.” Michonne muttered as she threw the sock to the side and looked at Andrea’s foot. Andrea did the same and grimaced at the sight. It was more than rubbed raw as she had initially thought; blisters upon blisters had broken out around her heel and the side of her foot, so much so that in some places they were no longer blisters but bleeding sores.

Andrea sighed and pulled the sock off her left foot, expecting more of the same. She wasn’t disappointed. She pulled her trouser leg out the way and prodded at her sore ankle. It was definitely swollen, from the degree of pain, Andrea suspected it was nothing more than a sprain.

“That’s going to need a wrap,” Michonne pointed at her ankle and then looked back at her blistered feet, “those will be a bit more difficult.”

Andrea snorted in amusement, “Yeah, a little bit.” She reached for her socks and slowly pulled them back on, deciding to forgo her boots, at least for a little while.

“First things first,” Michonne unlooped the chains and gave them a quick tug, “we need to get out of these woods.”

Andrea nodded in agreement, “You’ll get no argument from me.”


	5. Chapter 5

Daryl adjusted the crossbow strap where it was cutting into his shoulder and silently cursed Andrea for getting so far away from the farm in such little time. It seemed like the longer he followed her tracks, the colder the trail went. It shouldn’t have surprised him really; after all, she had been running for her life, the woman he’d seen her evolve into after Dale’s death was hardly going to sit back and relax, waiting for a bunch of undead freaks to tear her apart. She wasn’t the same person they’d all seen after Amy. The simple knowledge of that fact gave Daryl some semblance of hope that she was okay, just like his firsthand experience of Merle’s abilities led him to believe that he was still alive, somewhere.

He suppressed a yawn as he pushed further through the woods, it was early, barely light, and what little sleep he had managed to get the previous night had been disturbed several times; a possum had made the grave mistake of venturing too close to the sleeping Dixon and was presently hanging off his belt. Seemingly not long after the possum, the unmistakeable moaning and clumsy steps of a walker forced Daryl from his fragile state of sleep. It hadn’t taken him long to dispatch the creature or do a quick sweep of the immediate vicinity for any stragglers, but with the enveloping darkness, Daryl was reluctant to leave the area of the tree trunk and so, instead of either dragging the corpse away from the site or finding another place to sleep, he had resorted to draping the body across the fallen tree before crawling back inside and attempting to sleep. To say that the smell of the rotting corpse was unpleasant would have been an understatement, but if what Rick had told him were correct, the smell would be enough for other walkers to bypass his hiding place completely during the night. He hoped.

As his stomach made it’s presence known, Daryl briefly entertained the thought of stopping long enough to eat the possum. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d eaten something raw on the go. He took the animal off his belt and regarded it silently. If he found Andrea, he could almost guarantee she hadn’t eaten anything since they had been forced to flee the farm, after all, she was no hunter. He could also guarantee that she wouldn’t want to eat uncooked possum, no matter _how_ hungry she was. He shook his head and put it back on his belt; preparing and cooking the damn thing would take too long, especially when Andrea’s trail was already cold, and getting colder every minute he stayed still.

As he walked, he suddenly found himself in a small clearing. It only took him a few seconds to process the scene in front of him, making him stop dead in his tracks. Something wasn’t right. He pulled his hunting knife from the sheath at his hip and brought himself to a crouch. He didn’t need to check the walker closest to him to know that it was dead, the bloody mass that was once its skull told him that with a mere glance. The next one, however, had no immediately obvious head-trauma. Daryl edged closer to it and nudged its shoulder with the tip of his boot. When it didn’t move, Daryl leaned in closer, his knife at the ready, and quickly inspected the creature; a thick stream of congealed blood around its nose caught his attention and he smirked proudly; Blondie definitely wasn’t shying away from getting in close for a kill.

He pulled himself upright and stared at the third body that was sprawled gracelessly a few feet from him. He cocked his head to the side, blinked and frowned when the scene didn’t change. “What t’hell…” he murmured to himself as he stood over what was left of the corpse. For the first time since the end of the world, Daryl Dixon found himself completely stupefied. There was no way in hell that Blondie had managed to _decapitate_ a walker; for starters, he had seen the flick-knife she had taken to carrying and that pig-sticker was only just good enough to put down a walker with a well-aimed blow to the head. He shook is head in disbelief and rolled the walkers head over with his foot. The deep, wide cut in its forehead was too big to have been made by Andrea’s knife. It didn’t make sense.

Daryl made a slow wide circuit of the clearing, his hunter’s eyes seeking out tiny details that would help him to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. It didn’t take him long to find the three other sets of boot prints coming out of the trees; one set that were most definitely not left behind by walkers, they were too neatly formed. He bent down and studied the three sets of prints closer, lightly touching the disturbed dirt. They looked to all have been made around the same time, what kind of person would allow walkers to follow them around? The more he thought about it, the less it made sense; walkers were dangerous, and anyone who had managed to survive this long knew that, it was a fact of life.

He followed the tracks back over to the decapitated walker, and grimaced as he felt a familiar uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as the pieces of the puzzle fell together. This stranger _had_ to have been the one to put down that walker, while he wasn’t sure exactly how, there was no other explanation for the walkers head to be sat a few feet separate from its body. He didn’t like it one bit. His frown deepened when he noticed the sets of boot prints all veer off in the same direction, even more confusing to him was that the prints at the head of the group, the ones not made by walkers, were in tandem.

Andrea was smart, there was no way in hell she would just walk off with someone she didn’t know unless she thought that they could be trusted, especially in times like these, when they had seen the worst part of human nature brought to the forefront of a persons personality, he thought to himself, outsiders are dangerous. He knew he should feel better knowing that Andrea trusted this person enough after such a short period of time to leave with them, but in the back of his mind, was a little voice reminding him that she had also trusted Shane.

With a renewed sense of determination hastening his steps, Daryl made to follow the party’s trail without so much as a glance back at the dead walkers behind him. He walked until the sun suddenly broke fully through the woods and he found himself out in the open. The trees stood tall and unmoving behind him like stoic soldiers, while ahead of him, a tarmac road stretched off into the distance.

“Shit,” he muttered, clambering up the slight incline that led to the road. You can’t follow footprints where none can be left.


	6. Chapter 6

Andrea hobbled slowly down the road after Michonne. Their pace had slowed considerably since that morning, the throbbing pain in Andrea's lower extremities increasing incrementally with every step she took; it wouldn't be long, she thought, until she would have to stop again. While Michonne didn't show it, Andrea knew that all the rest stops they were talking was starting to annoy her; Michonne was used to moving quickly and quietly on her own, Andrea's bumbling through the woods was neither quiet nor fast, and she was overly conscious of how much she was slowing the other woman down. In these areas, in these times, speed and stealth were essential.

She sighed heavily and concentrated on following the low moans of Michonne's walkers up ahead, attempting to shove the pain in her ankle to once corner of her mind. She lifted her head in the bright afternoon sun and frowned at her surroundings. There was something about this road that seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. She worked through the recesses of her mind as she tried to pinpoint their location.

"Michonne?" She called, just loud enough that the other woman would hear her without drawing any unwanted attention from the woods that ran along their left side as they walked. Fifteen metres ahead, Michonne paused and looked over her shoulder, raising an expectant eyebrow at the blonde who was slowly catching up. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

Michonne shrugged, "Couldn't say, I'm not particularly familiar with these parts," she tilted her head to the side and watched as Andrea stared intently off into the distance, a deep furrow to her brows, "why?" she asked.

"I think I've been here before," she murmured. She couldn't shake the feeling that she knew this road, if only in passing, but she couldn't place it; it was like trying to put a name to the face of a person she had seen in only briefly in a crowd. There were probably hundreds of places in that part of Georgia that looked the same, with the smooth tarmac road curving slightly to the left and the towering trees running parallel to it. She walked slowly past Michonne and chewed on her lower lip as she concentrated on sifting through her memories.

After a few minutes spent in silence, Andrea lifted her head and looked at her new friend, a small smile on her face, "I think I know where we are." She headed off down the road as fast her as injured ankle could carry her before Michonne had a chance to reply. Andrea's slow, limping gait made it easy for Michonne to catch up to her, even with the two walkers lumbering along behind her.

"You mind telling me where the hell we're going?" She asked the blonde coolly, giving the chains in her hand a sharp tug when she felt resistance.

"One of our group got lost in the woods after we broke down on the highway, Sophia, she was twelve," a sad smile crossed Andrea's face at the thought of the little girl and Michonne didn't miss her use of the word 'was'. Andrea coughed away the lump in her throat and continued, “After we got to the Greene farm, Daryl and I went out a few times looking for her, we came by this way once.”

Michonne frowned and threw a glance at the woman beside her, “So, what?”

“Sooo, we’re not far from the highway,” Andrea grinned enthusiastically, “that’s where the others would go to regroup.”

“And what exactly makes you think they would go back there?” Michonne asked. From what Andrea had told her of the night they were forced to leave the farm, it wasn’t as if they had had time to come up with a detailed plan for if they got separated.

Andrea shrugged half-heartedly, “Just a feeling I guess,” beside her, Michonne snorted, “When Sophia went missing we left a message on one of the cars for her in case she found her way back and we weren’t there, we went back every day.”

“I’m not sure I trust your ‘ _feeling_ ’.” Michonne scoffed derisively, scuffing her worn combat boots as she walked.

“Besides, apart from the farm, the highway is the one landmark that everyone in the group knows about,” Andrea pressed. Michonne sighed in resignation but allowed the blonde to take the lead, dragging her feet and tugging her walkers along behind her. They trudged along the road silently; Michonne content to keep to herself, Andrea deep in thought, working through the memories of the last time she had been on this road.

_Daryl walked lightly through the fallen leaves and Andrea found herself in awe of how he barely made a sound, a stark contrast to the noise she was making as she traced his footsteps. She winced at the particularly loud crack of a twig snapping beneath her shoe as she hopped, less than gracefully, over a fallen tree. She shrugged sheepishly when Daryl glanced over his shoulder and half glared at her._

_“Damn woman, a herd o’ elephants woulda been quieter.” He snorted derisively and continued picking his way through the foliage. Andrea may not know Daryl that well, not that anyone in the group really did, but she was sure that underneath the surface of the rebuke was a slight teasing note. She shook her head at him and followed slowly, carefully choosing where to plant her feet in order to make as little noise as possible._

_“I never thanked you, did I?” she said after a moment of comfortable silence._

_Daryl stopped mid-stride and turned to face her, his face a picture of confusion, “F’ what?”_

_Andrea shrugged and sidestepped a tree, bringing her closer to him, “For treating me like normal.” She said simply. When the confused expression didn’t leave Daryl’s face she continued, “After what happened at the CDC, you’ve never treated me any different to how you did before. Everyone else walks on eggshells around me, treats me like I’m going to break, but you don’t and I never thanked for that.” She dropped her eyes and stared at the scuffmarks on the toes of her boots, suddenly embarrassed by her confession._

_Daryl grunted in acknowledgment and shuffled awkwardly beside her. Andrea nodded once and made a move to continue their search for Sophia, only to be stopped a barely audible “I get it”. She paused and looked back at him, surprised that he’d replied in the first place._

_“Get what?”_

_Daryl shrugged and fidgeted with on strap of his crossbow, “I get why y’ wanted t’ kill yourself.”_

_Andrea lowered her head, “Daryl, I didn’t want to kill myself.” She said softly._

_“But you didn’t wanna live neither,” he replied gruffly, “She was your sister, you didn’t wanna live in this shithole alone, what went down at the CDC was convenient. I can’t say that I’da wanted t’ do the same if I was in your shoes, Merle’s an asshole, but he’s still my brother.” He shrugged again, “Like I said, I get it.”_

_Andrea stared at him in complete silence. It wasn’t often that Daryl Dixon made semi-long speeches, or speeches of any variety for that matter. Daryl shuffled uneasily under her intense stare._

_“What?” he demanded sharply._

_Andrea smiled softly, “You do get it, don’t you.” She stated._

_“It ain’t exactly hard t’ get, family is family, I can’t see Grimes back there wantin’ to stick around if the Queen Bee and Child Wonder bought it.” Andrea nodded thoughtfully, “Now I ain’t sayin’ I agreed with ya, but it was your decision, even if it was a stupid one.”_

_Andrea bit her lower lip at the rebuke, though she knew he meant what he had said. He did understand her reasons for not wanting to leave the CDC with the others, why at times she still wished that she had stayed behind with Jacqui and Jenner. She just wished that the others could understand too._

_“Still, thank you.” She smiled when Daryl grunted a quick ‘whatever’ and walked away, mumbling under his breath about having work to do._

Andrea led Michonne through the graveyard of abandoned cars on the highway. She walked slowly and silently, her hand resting on the butt of the gun that was tucked neatly into the brown leather shoulder holster that was hanging at her side. She found the eerie stillness of the highway no less unsettling than she had the first time she had been there. There was something about the randomly deserted cars and the utter silence that seemingly drove home the idea that the world would never be the same was it used to be, an idea that the farm had largely kept at bay.

After days of walking up and down the same stretch of road, navigating and searching the cars for Sophia, it didn’t take Andrea long to find the car they had used to leave a message for the little girl. The writing on the windshield was faded and partially washed away by the few bouts of rain they had had. She walked to the back of the car and glanced at the window. After quickly establishing that there wasn’t a message for her on the back window, she walked in a circle, checking the windows of the cars nearest to her. Nothing. Andrea growled in frustration and started to make her way further up the highway, ignoring Michonne’s annoyed pleas for her to slow down. 

Michonne tugged hard on the chains in her hand in a futile attempt to make the walkers move faster. To her left she spotted a lone walker ambling out of the trees at the bottom of the embankment. She let her free hand rest on the grip of her katana, drawing comfort from the knowledge that her weapon of choice was close at hand. Her dark eyes snapped away from the walker at the sound of Andrea letting out her frustration.

“ _Son of a bitch!_ ” Andrea yelled, bringing her fist down onto the bonnet of a blue Ford truck that was sat on the grass verge in the middle of the highway before turning her back to the car and sliding down until she was sat on the ground, her knees brought up to her chest.

Michonne coolly arched an eyebrow at the display but said nothing as she looped the chains around an open car door and through the broken side window.

“What’s wrong?” she asked once she was sure the walkers were tied securely to the car.

Andrea sniffed and wiped angrily at the tears that had escaped the barrier of her eyelashes, “They left me.” Michonne stared at her silently, her confusion evident on her features. Andrea tapped the truck’s side with the back of her hand, “This is Hershel’s car, T was driving it at the farm, last time I saw it was when we stopped to get Lori, Beth and Carol.”

Understanding dawned in Michonne’s eyes and she nodded sympathetically, “So they were here.”

Andrea nodded and pushed herself off the ground. She strode purposefully over to the restrained walkers and started to untie them, “We need to move, it isn’t safe here.” She replied, a cold edge to her voice.

Michonne grunted in acknowledgment and relinquished Andrea of one of the walkers, her eyes straying to the lone walker that had made itself up the embankment and was winding itself awkwardly around the cars.


End file.
